My eject USB devices icon has disappeared from my System Tray -- How do I get it

Are you sure it isn't hidden? If there is an arrow next to the system tray, click it to expand it.

If you make sure that nothing is accessing your USB device. Windows open, music playing off the device, sending data back and forth, etc... You can unplug it without doing any kind of damage.

Hi there,

I agree with Hawkeye, check to make sure it's just not hidden beside the left pointing or up pointing arrow in the system tray.
Also, remember that you have to have a removable device connected for it to show up. It's not needed if you don't have anything to 'remove safely'

Also, most usb flash drives are marked optimize for quick removal so there is no need to safely remove device as long as you aren't reading/writing to it at the time of removal.

Best answer selected by leefrance.

Create a new shortcut on your desktop as follows:


Location:
%windir%\system32\RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

Name:
Safely Remove USB Device

Change Icon:
Look for Icons here:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\shell32.dll

About 4 clicks to the right is an icon with Green Upward Left Arrow (3rd row of icons) that I use and it

I use this when the system tray icon doesn't show up, also this has a bit more information about what is being ejected.

Jeff

For USB hard drives, the default is also quick removal.

Suggestion:

For USB hard disks, the user may want to enable write caching to improve perfornace. This setting also requires safe removal

Use the device manager Disk drives, while the drive is plugged in, and then properties, then click the policies tab.

If the drive is optiimized for quick removal no problem, but if it's optimized for performance safe removal is important.

Jeff

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